


Beauty

by Soleya



Series: Fifty First Dates [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soleya/pseuds/Soleya
Summary: I don't have good summaries for these.  They're... dates.  All of them.  Or something.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Series: Fifty First Dates [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707853
Comments: 19
Kudos: 96





	Beauty

Jack was early. And he hated being early, but not nearly as much as he hated being late, and he was definitely late, because he wasn’t early _enough_. He’d wanted to beat her to the restaurant, but it was only ten minutes until their reservations. And there was nothing Sam Carter liked more than being early. Pulling the fleet car into a parking spot, he tried hard not to let his irritation show as he headed for the entrance to the restaurant.

She wasn’t on the benches just inside the door. She wasn’t standing, either, and he craned his neck at the bar before scanning the parking lot through the window to look for her car. Maybe he _had_ beaten her there. Self-satisfaction rose in his chest.

“Do you have a reservation, sir?” the hostess asked.

“O’Neill,” he said. “Seven. I’m waiting for someone. Unless she’s here.”

“I see, party of two. No, no one’s asked about that reservation yet,” the young redhead told him with a smile. “You’re welcome to have a seat at the bar or we can take you to your table.”

“I’ll wait here, thanks.” Turning back to the door, Jack tugged awkwardly at his suit jacket. He _really_ hadn’t cared for changing at Peterson, but his flight from DC had been delayed and left him with no other choice. She wasn’t faring much better, he knew; she’d spent the first half of the week working double shifts in her lab, and her “quick mission” yesterday had turned into an overnight. That was probably why she was running late.

Well, late for Carter. It was eight minutes ‘til seven.

But he knew she was back on Earth, knew she’d made it through her med evals. She was home and safe, and he could wait. Jack took a seat on the leather bench facing the door.

~/~

Jack stared at his watch in consternation and disbelief as it flipped from 18:59 to 19:00. Carter was late. Not “not early,” but _late_ , and that was incredibly unlike her. He knew SG-1 had been released from the base almost two hours earlier. Two hours was enough time for a woman to get ready for a date, wasn’t it? Even a first date?

Wasn’t it?

Frowning at the hostess, he said, “Sorry. She’s never late.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” she offered. “We have some spare tables tonight.”

Jack turned to stare out at the parking lot.

~/~

At three minutes late, he called her. She’d misunderstood him and ended up at the wrong restaurant, obviously, probably waiting for him.

The call went to voicemail. He hung up.

At five minutes, he tried again. “Hey, I’m here,” he told her inbox. “Give me a call and let me know where you are.”

At seven minutes, he texted her. _Where are you?_

It was ten after when it struck him. She wasn’t lost. She wasn’t late.

She wasn’t coming.

Jack O’Neill had been stood up, and it made his hackles rise. Yes, it was their first date, and yes, she was probably nervous. But so was he, dammit. And he didn’t deserve to be left standing alone and embarrassed in the middle of a fancy steakhouse.

He turned to the hostess, trying to figure out what to say. She beat him to it. “I hope she’s okay.”

His heart dropped in his chest, fingers turning to ice. He hadn’t considered that – that something might have happened to her. A flat tire, hopefully. Or she’d been pulled over for driving like a maniac. He dialed her again. And got her voicemail again.

 _Whatever’s going on, you at least need to tell me you’re alive_ , he texted.

The next two minutes dragged by in slow motion as his brain ran through every worst-case scenario in the book. She’d been hit on her way to the restaurant, or… or slipped in the shower and cracked her head. Or she’d never even made it home from the base.

At twelve after, he called her one last time. And then he headed for the parking lot.

~/~

Carter’s Volvo was at the curb just outside her house, and Jack was in equal measures relieved, worried she was naked and unconscious in the shower, and livid that he was going to find her hiding from him on the couch with a bottle of wine. Which was why he didn’t bother to knock. If she didn’t want him to let himself in, she should have asked for her key back when he’d left SG-1.

“Carter,” he called as he opened the door. It came out harsher than he wanted it to but not as harsh as it felt. Either way, he got no answer.

There were no lights on. And that was odd, because it was getting close to eight and definitely past the threshold of darkness outside that called for electricity. He flipped the hall switch to find her purse, keys, and phone sitting on the front table. All the notifications of his calls and texts popped up as he flipped the phone open. She hadn’t touched it.

“Carter?” Maybe she really was unconscious in the shower.

Well, that would make for an awkward first date.

Jack made his way carefully further into the house, checking the office, then the spare room. The kitchen and living room were empty, but the door to her bedroom was open and the light was on. With a cringe, he headed for the room he’d never even seen and stepped inside.

And stopped dead.

She obviously hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Her feet were still on the floor on the other side of the bed, in fact, though her upper body had toppled over, her back to him. She’d been too far down the mattress to hit the pillow, too, but the towel bunched around her drying hair had kept her head up a bit. Her body was also wrapped in a towel. A large one, thankfully, that covered her ass, because she’d be _mortified_ if he caught her both sleeping through their date _and_ naked.

For a moment, he considered waking her. But only for a moment. Carter wasn’t the napping type; she was the falling asleep from exhaustion type, despite the curling iron’s glowing red light and the two dresses – one blue, one black – hanging over her closet door with coordinating heels on the floor beneath. She had always given the Air Force her all – and Jack loved that about her – but even Carter had limits. And she’d clearly reached them. Moving quietly, he pulled the plug on the curling iron. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain that the towel covered as much in the front as it had in the back, so he kept his eyes carefully averted as he picked her feet up off the floor and gently set them on the mattress to ease the twist in her hips. The skin there was cool, and he tugged the bottom corner of the quilt free to cover her bare legs.

And then, silently, he shut off the light and retreated to the living room.

~/~

Jack knew Carter had awoken roughly three seconds after it happened. He knew because he heard a soft mumble from that direction. Then a louder one. Then a thud as her feet – or all of her, he wasn’t really sure – hit the floor. And the words that time were clear. “Oh, my God.”

He turned off the television and kicked in the feet of the recliner to sit upright.

“Oh, my God.” It was louder that time. “Oh my God ohmyGodohmy -”

She came flying out of the bedroom, the towel that had been in her hair dangling precariously from one shoulder and the other towel clutched haphazardly around her at her chest. She’d probably been headed for her cell phone and hadn’t expected to find Jack sitting in her living room, of course, and she literally screeched to a halt, her eyes wide. “ _Oh, my God_.”

“You said that already,” he told her lightly, restricting his smile to one turned-up corner of his lips despite the fact that she was barefoot and her hair clumped in little pieces that stuck out in all directions.

“I’m _so sorry_ ,” she pressed, and at least it was something different. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s -”

“I didn’t – I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Her brain was going far too fast to do something senseless like let Jack get a word in. “Oh, my God. I swear. I didn’t mean to fall -”

He didn’t bother to wait for a pause, because there wouldn’t be one. “I noticed.”

“- asleep. I -”

Either the words and their meaning finally sunk in or she caught the way his eyes darted briefly down. And it finally occurred to her that she was standing in front of him in only a bath towel. A hurriedly wrapped towel, at that.

This time, it came out as a mortified whisper. “Oh, my God.” And she turned her back to him, her head ducked in shame. But there was no sense in fleeing; the damage was done.

Honestly, Jack was equally torn between pitying her and laughing at her, but the latter probably wouldn’t get him very far. Smoothly rolling to his feet, he told the back of her head, “I didn’t see anything I haven’t seen before.”

“Promise?” The cringe rang through in her voice.

“Promise,” he told her.

The deep breath she took made her shoulders rise as her head came up a bit. And then a thought occurred to her, and she asked flatly, still facing the other direction, “Is this when I find out you’ve already seen me naked and I just didn’t know about it?”

He couldn’t help it; he chuckled. “No. I have seen your underwear; I have seen you _in_ various pieces of your underwear at various times. But that’s all. Promise.” Her chin dropped to her chest again – in relief, this time, he thought – and he took a step closer as he offered, “Listen. Why don’t we order dinner, and I’ll go pick it up while you put some clothes on?”

Her head turned toward him. Not enough to really see him, but at least enough to be seen. “Yeah?”

“Is that a question or an answer?” Jack hazarded another step closer, halfway between her and the couch.

“Um….” She had to think about it, and it made him smile. He would get his first date; he didn’t mind doing a little tap dance for it. “An answer,” she decided.

“Good.” One more step. “Mediterranean? Indian?”

Her brief laugh was immediate. “Not Indian. Not if we plan to do anything afterward.”

Oh, yes, it was gonna be a _good_ date. Jack had to wonder if she realized how that sounded. “Are we planning on something afterward?” he murmured. One last step put him in reach of her, and she startled a little as his thumbs skimmed down the backs of her arms. But she didn’t pull away, and he let his fingers spread over her bare skin as he moved in, close enough to feel her back against his chest and smell her shampoo. He’d never been so close to her in such a personal way, and arousal rippled through him.

She obviously felt it, too; she melted a little against him, tipping her head back to get closer. He didn’t need to wait for an answer to the question; he already had it. “Mediterranean, then,” he breathed in her ear and got a nod in response. “Falafel or shwarma?”

Carter took a deep breath, her back expanding against his chest. “Combo.”

“Okay.” He shouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist. Jack turned his head just an inch to press his lips behind her ear, then lower on her neck. The skin he found there was soft and supple and inviting, and his hands slid off her elbows to settle on her scantily-clad hips. “I really need you to go put clothes on now,” he murmured into her shoulder, “because as much as I’m loving the half-naked bit, we were supposed to eat over an hour ago and I’m _starving_.”

With a laugh, she turned into him, one hand still clutching the towel together at her chest. She was beautiful, alight, and Jack was one hundred percent positive that if she kissed him like that, there would be no food for a very long time. He caught her face gently in her hands and pressed his lips to her forehead, instead. And they just stood there, breathing. Being.

“Clothes,” she mumbled finally.

“Yes. Clothes.”

But neither of them moved.

“Right. Clothes,” she said again. That time, she actually managed to push herself away and head for her bedroom.

“Sam,” he called as she reached her door. “Wear the blue one.”

~/~

She’d done as he asked. The blue dress had a skirt that stopped just above her knees and a wide, deep vee neck that he was really looking forward to investigating later. She’d set the table and dimmed the lights, complete with a couple of mismatched candles she’d obviously grabbed from various rooms. She’d fixed her hair, thankfully. But she was still barefoot, and he found the mix of formality and homeyness to be sweet and alluring and perfect.

They managed to get the food and utensils and napkins set out before he just couldn’t help himself. Catching her face gently in his hands, he told her, “I have to.”

Her smile spread until her eyes twinkled in the candlelight. “I think you should.”

And their lips met, tender and full of promise.

“This is way better than some fancy restaurant,” he told her as they broke apart, moving to slide one of the chairs away from the table. “Your seat, madam.”

“Why, thank you.”

He took a seat across from her and popped the plastic lid from the container of rice as his stomach growled. “You’re not gonna judge me if I basically shove all this food in my face at once, right?”

“Don’t make yourself sick,” she warned with a grin and a sparkle in her eye. “We have plans later, remember?”

“Oh, I did not forget,” he promised. “Good first date.”

She giggled and reached for the falafel.


End file.
